


Mirrorball

by DarkIsRising



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: Jedi Apprentice Series - Jude Watson & Dave Wolverton, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Anonymous Sex, Clubbing, Crack Treated Seriously, Fix-It of Sorts, M/M, Maybe Too Seriously, Post-Battle of Naboo (Star Wars), Qui-Gon Jinn Lives, Slow Build, angsty club dancing, disco balls and people wearing too much glitter, tragic hangovers, very very slow burn as it turns out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-14
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-18 18:08:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 18,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28747440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkIsRising/pseuds/DarkIsRising
Summary: “Here,” the bartender slides him a drink in an off-putting shade of mauve. “Liquid courage.”In which Obi-Wan is Not Okay after Qui-Gon very nearly dies. He finds solace in an uncharacteristic place.
Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi/Other(s), Qui-Gon Jinn/Obi-Wan Kenobi
Comments: 131
Kudos: 150





	1. Chapter 1

It's in the way the masters watch him with granite frowns, the wide berths the padawans give him in the halls, the silence when he sits to eat among the other knights. 

It's the words they whisper when he's nearly—but not quite—out of earshot. The ones that hang in the air around him with every step he takes, every meditation attempt he abandons, every restless walk through the gardens when the temple is powered down and sleeping. 

_Sith killer. Sith killer. Sith killer._

He can't escape those words. They follow like a shadow. They slot into his every step until even his footfalls ring with the rhythm of it.

“Fearful, they are,” Yoda says when he tracks Obi-Wan down to find the knight attempting to meditate and failing spectacularly. The Jedi master places a small, wizened hand on Obi-Wan’s wrist where it rests on his knee. Obi-Wan stares at the curved green claws on his skin, the only physical contact he’s had with anyone outside of sparring in far too long. “Their own weakness, it is. Patience, you you must have with them.”

“Fearful? Of me?” Obi-Wan laughs and mostly masks the hostility in the sound. He knows better than to push his luck so he makes sure his voice stays bemused and detached rather than bitter. Bemused detachment is an acceptable Jedi state. Anything darker would just send him right back to the mind healers. “I killed the Sith, Master Yoda. I didn’t make him.”

“Precisely. Killed him, you did. Remember your Sith lore, do you? Hmm?”

“I have no plans to become some mysterious Sith master’s next apprentice.”

Obi-Wan had barely been able to get one master to accept him and in the end he’d had to offer to blow himself up to get that far. Even if he were interested, his history with the whole apprenticeship system was too pathetic to ever give it another go, vows to the Order notwithstanding. 

Yoda says nothing, but it is clear by the way his ears move back that he is bothered by Obi-Wan’s response.

On the rare nights when he tries to lie in bed the pulse of those words, _Sith killer,_ push through his body, blood and reprobation filling his veins with every beat of his heart. He imagines that this is what it would feel like to die from rot, this slow creep that fills his limbs and festers wherever it sits. Obi-Wan is immobilized by it, and it’s only too easy for memories to find him in this state, rooting amid the decay. The self-loathing that he’s carried with him since he was a teenager—buried so deep behind becoming Qui-Gon’s perfect padawan that he thought he’d managed to finally snuff it out—grows.

He knows this is a path to the dark side. He _knows_ it and yet, like the Temple reject that almost became a farmer that he is, Obi-Wan can’t help but reach out to tend to this barren patch until it bears fruit. 

###

Qui-Gon very nearly died. Obi-Wan had watched the Sith’s lightsaber run his master through, the killing blow all but assured while he was stuck behind a red shield and could do nothing except scream. The rest he hardly remembers. He isn’t sure if it’s due to innate stubbornness or a defensive mechanism beyond his control, his mind’s way of making sure that he doesn’t go insane sifting through it all moment by sweating, aching moment. It isn’t a particularly helpful trait for a Jedi to not remember every detail of such an important battle, but he can’t be bothered to care.

He remembers loosening his shoulders with one final bouncing breath that Qui-Gon had tried to train out of him in the salles— _In battle your enemy isn’t going to give you time for these little grounding habits of yours, my padawan,_ fondness interwoven with his chiding—and after that Obi-Wan had done what needed to be done. 

“But did you strike in anger?” the mind healers prodded him for weeks afterwards, words becoming sharper and shorter the longer Obi-Wan refused to cooperate. “When you killed the Sith were you angry? He’d just killed your master—”

“Evidently not,” Obi-Wan had deflected, waving to the bacta tank where Qui-Gon floated in a blue glow that was a little too like the blue of his lightsaber for Obi-Wan’s liking. 

Qui-Gon had woken with little fanfare, save the polite beep from a machine near Obi-Wan’s elbow. After that Obi-Wan had been firmly guided out of the way as healers flocked into the room, each grabbing for this tool and that tech, words running together in a chatter that had risen with every new being that had entered.

He hadn’t minded when he was finally ushered out of the room to make space for more medics. Obi-Wan had spent the month his master was healing in a cot by his tank, and it was with a great deal of relief that he’d staggered to his room to collapse face-first onto his bed.

 _He’s alive,_ Obi-Wan had thought as a heated wetness too primitive to be called tears had pushed out of his eyes from somewhere deep in his chest. _He’s alive._

It wasn’t until he was drifting off to sleep that he realized that he wasn’t in his new, Council-approved bed in the knights’ quarters. That room he’d been to maybe three times since it was issued to him after his hasty knighting ceremony. Instead, the last thing he saw before exhaustion had taken hold from where he sprawled across the same bedspread he’d used in all the years he’d been Qui-Gon’s padawan was the shut door that separated his room from his master’s.

Sleep came swiftly that night, and it was one of many things that Obi-Wan was grateful for.

“Didn’t they knight you?” Qui-Gon had asked the moment Obi-Wan entered his sick room the next day, a rush in his voice that is as impatient as his hands that are pulling clothes over his still-bandaged center.

Obi-Wan remembers staring at that stark wrap of white as it disappeared behind a beige tunic. He wanted to ask why he needed it— _Didn’t the bacta heal him? Were there lingering injuries that the healers were worried about?_ —but stopped himself.

“They did. Master Yoda thought it best that—”

Qui-Gon interrupted him, the curt shake of his head making the mane of unbound hair around him into something nearly feral. “Why didn’t they cut your braid, then?” 

“We were waiting for you.” 

I _was waiting for you,_ Obi-Wan had wanted to say but the words were too heavy to leave his tongue.

Qui-Gon had reached for an energy scalpel from a medical tray and in a move as smooth as any he had used against that nameless Sith he sliced the braid from behind Obi-Wan’s ear.

Obi-Wan was too shocked to move though he did take the braid—the final visible vestige of all the years he had poured into being Qui-Gon’s apprentice—when his master hastily pressed it into his hand before running out into the hall. 

The last thing Obi-Wan had seen through their training bond was Qui-Gon skittering to a halt in front of Anakin and falling to his knees as he asked the brightly grinning boy to be his apprentice. The Council may have forbidden the boy from training but that had never stopped the great maverick before.

After that Obi-Wan had severed the bond between them as ruthlessly—as surgically—as his training braid had been cut. The quiet that followed was so disorienting that he had to bow his head while he collected himself. When he straightened it was with grim determination. Qui-Gon had moved on and so he would, too. There were things to do, things he’d neglected as he waited in his own stasis for Qui-Gon to come out of his. He was overdue for a workout and so he walked to the training chamber, tossing his braid into the nearest garbage chute as he left. 

###

Time passes. Time heals.

Maybe not his heart, but his reputation, surely.

When it becomes clear that Obi-Wan is no nearer to turning into a Sith than he ever had been he finds a tentative peace among the other Jedi. He isn’t sent out for missions yet, which makes him think of adages about wisdom and the general proximity of friends to enemies. Instead in the afternoon he finds himself teaching classes of twelve-year-olds, of all things. They vibrate with energy, with hormones, with worries, with dreams, with mortifications. Loudest of all in his first few weeks as their instructor they echo with fear to be facing the Sith killer, himself.

Their fear settles eventually, but not the other stuff. It seems to be the natural resting state of the young to be in constant flux and it makes Obi-Wan very, very, _very_ tired. Every day’s end brings a fresh headache from dealing with all of their unadulterated wants and needs shouting through the Force for hours on end.

If this is some ploy of the Council’s to keep Obi-Wan too drained to turn, then it is blastedly clever and terribly effective. 

Obi-Wan starts to settle, too. Morning meditation comes easier, his Ataru practice flows with renewed purpose, and he can nearly sleep an entire cycle which is good news for the dark circles that had taken up residency beneath his eyes. 

He could almost believe this new foundation he’s building a life on is solid, except one day he looks up from his place at the front of the class to see a familiar figure leaning in his doorway, watching him. Blue eyes that eviscerate with their somber consideration cut through him like a ‘saber through a torso and suddenly Obi-Wan realizes he hasn’t been building a foundation at all. It was only ever smoke and illusion and other things that are too ephemeral to be trusted.

Qui-Gon doesn’t interrupt. He stays where he is, observing with his arms crossed inside the sleeves of his robe and then disappearing when Obi-Wan’s attention wavers to answer a student’s question.

Obi-Wan’s heart beats triple time when class is over and he finds his former master waiting in the hall for him. Obi-Wan doesn’t— _can’t, musn’t_ —let Qui-Gon see how unnerved he is. Obi-Wan instead greets him with an overly bright “Hello there!” that has Obi-Wan cringing beneath the pleasant facade he’s cobbled hastily onto his face.

Qui-Gon blinks, though he’s too polite to say anything about Obi-Wan’s too-cheerful tone. Instead he gamely matches the manic energy with a gravely “Hello, yourself” which is even worse than anything Obi-Wan could have imagined because it’s said with that distant diplomat expression that Obi-Wan has seen employed on thousands of sentient beings over the decade he’s known Qui-Gon. He knows that look and it is as impenetrable as it is unscalable.

Obi-Wan won’t let himself falter so he forces himself to match Qui-Gon, hollow smile for hollow smile.

“I hadn’t heard that you were back,” Obi-Wan offers, heart thundering in his temples.

“Yes, we returned two days ago.”

“Ah,” Obi-Wan says, placid as the lake in the Room of a Thousand Fountains. He hopes it makes him sound wise because in truth his heart is now beating so hard he fears his face is turning red. 

Two days. Two days and Qui-Gon is only now coming to find him. Which would be understandable if he had been injured but there is nothing in the way he holds himself that would suggest discomfort. If anything he actually looks better than he did when he left: his face is no longer gray and his shoulders don’t curl in to protect a chest wound that should have been the end of him.

Which would only leave Anakin, but before he can ask after his new padawan’s health he catches sight of the boy bounding over with an enthusiasm as bright as the two suns of his home planet. The braid that swings behind his ear is longer now for all the months that he’s had it and there’s something in confronting that braid, to seeing tangible evidence of how long it’s been since he’s spoken to Qui-Gon, that is a bridge too far.

“ — though we aren’t here for long.” Qui-Gon is saying and Obi-Wan makes himself listen. _If our separation doesn’t bother Qui-Gon, then I won’t let it bother me either,_ Obi-Wan decides as he releases whatever expectations he’d had for this moment into the Force. “We ship out again in three more days.”

“Well, they do keep you busy.” Obi-Wan says as Anakin’s enthusiasm nearly rockets him past where they stand. He is caught and steadied by Qui-Gon’s quick hand on his shoulder. It is an unconscious movement, one that would be expected of a master and his charge. One that whispers of the training bond that has had all this time to weave between them, anchoring a rambunctious padawan just as much as it grounds his at-times-impulsive master.

Anakin isn’t to blame for whatever these feelings are that gnaw at Obi-Wan’s insides, so he is careful to greet the boy far more genuinely than he had Qui-Gon. “Hello, there, Anakin,” he says before bowing a farewell that is exactly as low as a knight should bow to a superior and not one iota more. “I do apologize but I must be off. If you’ll excuse me.”

“They do keep you busy here,” Qui-Gon observes, words a mirror to Obi-Wan’s own. His smile is so hollow that Obi-Wan imagines if he were to knock on it he could hear a deep, fathomless echo.

“I suppose they do, from a certain point of view.”

 _Whatever that means,_ Obi-Wan thinks, but Qui-Gon only bows at the bantha babble that Obi-Wan is passing off as enlightenment and watches him go.

It is impossible for Obi-Wan to find his hard won peace knowing that Qui-Gon is back and at any moment he might turn a corner and there he’ll be, with no warning. With less than no warning, because Obi-Wan is clutching to his shielding so tightly that a sandstorm in a hurricane couldn’t possibly wrest it from his grip.

Old demons are back, biting at his heels as he paces the darkened Temple pathways.

_Sith killer. Sith killer. Sith killer._

Is it any wonder, then, that he finds himself leaving the Temple entirely to wander the platforms and bridges of Coruscant? With the whooshing air taxis and the screaming curses and the drunken howls of laughter the city at night is loud enough that he can nearly drown out the words that have begun to plague him again.

_Nearly._

Though not quite.


	2. Chapter 2

Before the morning dawns on his first night out, Obi-Wan stops two muggings and a handful of drunken fights. He doesn’t mean to intercede. Walking through Coruscant is supposed to be a simple distraction, nothing more. He only intends to become a shadow passing through the darkness that gathers in corners of the clattering, steel city—as unremarkable as a glass of water poured into the sea.

Instead he finds himself consoling a trio of weeping teenage Dressellians as they count the credits their mugger hadn’t spilled over the side of a skybridge after Obi-Wan kicked him in his back, driving him away. One of the girls pleads with Obi-Wan—thick wrinkles on her face catching her tears so that they are canyons carved by salty rivers—not to tell her mother.

“I won’t,” he says, patting her shoulder awkwardly. “I don’t even know your mother.”

It’s been an age since he’s been sent out on a mission so it’s rather nice to feel useful again, though he knows better than to think he alone can repair the petty wrongs of the universe. Obi-Wan has no use for vigilante justice and has no interest in being a cloaked figure that swoops in to mete it out as the whim takes him. It isn’t fitting work for a Jedi, for once thing, and for another the police droids get snippy when they feel like the do-gooders at the Temple are infringing on their beat.

Besides, the longer he does this, the more likely he is to draw attention to himself and the Coruscant PressCorps has a nasty habit of giving catchy nicknames to the beings they find fit to report on. Mace Windu still hadn’t quite outrun the time he’d had to petition for an increase in the Temple’s annual budget to a panel of senators and he’d thereafter become “Whingeing Windu” in their coverage of the resolution.

The Sith Killer already has one moniker he hates, there’s no use courting a second.

Which is how his next night of wandering he winds up at a club he hasn’t been inside of in years. Not since he was seventeen and Garen Muln had decided that Obi-Wan Kenobi—apprentice to the venerated Qui-Gon Jinn and the Temple's highest achieving student in half a century—needed to relax. 

“You’re wound up tighter than a protocol droid getting a tune up. You’ve been so obsessed with all this thing entails,” Garen laughed while Obi-Wan fended off his agemate's playful tugging at his padawan braid. “You’ve forgotten how to have fun."

Garen’s growth spurts had finally sent him shooting up so far past Obi-Wan that when they dance, pressed together and anonymous in a sea of beings, Obi-Wan had needed to lift his chin for Garen to kiss him properly.

"This is probably not a good idea," Obi-Wan had said into Garen's ear, shouting to be heard above the music.

"First rule of clubbing," Garen shouted back as he pulled Obi-Wan's hips to his. "Whatever happens at the club, stays at the club."

The place is much the same as Obi-Wan remembers, down to the surly-faced Mon Calamari at the door. He takes an identification scan of Obi-Wan and waits for the information to pull up with the patience of a being that has been at it all night and still has hours to go before his shift ends. Behind Obi-Wan the line is filled with beings from all sectors of the galaxy, each wearing the sort of clothes that put Obi-Wan’s Temple-issued brown cloak and his simple black tunic to shame. They all have a curious sheen to them, like they are sweating even though the night air is rather cool.

Obi-Wan knows the scan took when the bouncer turns his moist head so that he can size Obi-Wan up dead-on with one perfectly round eye.

“You here for business or pleasure, Sir Jedi?”

“Not business,” Obi-Wan says, only because he can’t bring himself to say the word pleasure. Pleasure-seeking is too self-indulgent and not at all becoming of a Jedi. Though he supposes as distracted and agitated as he is, Obi-Wan hasn’t been much of a Jedi himself lately. 

"Understood," the Mon Calamari says, palming a screen on the wall beside him with a giant webbed hand. The thin red laser that separates the club's entrance from the queue waiting to get in lowers. "Enjoy your not-business." 

Obi-Wan gingerly steps over the laser, flipping his cloak so that it doesn’t get singed on his way in.

He hands over his cloak to the harried Twi'lek girl working a little booth in front of the club’s closed inner door and receives a number on a chain just long enough to wrap around his forearm in exchange. He starts away but she calls him back with an impatient “Hey!”

Wordlessly, she raps her blue knuckle against a posted sign that reads: “No Weapons! This means YOU! No exceptions!” and holds her hand out for the lightsaber that hangs exposed on Obi-Wan’s hip.

“I can’t—” he starts but is cut off with a firmness that speaks of having dealt with all of this before.

“This means _you_ ,” she reads outloud, rapping her knuckle on the sign again. He relents, passing his lightsaber over the counter and is given another tag on a chain. “First time?” she asks as she stows his things in a pneumonic chamber and programs his assigned numbers into the system. With a woosh they disappear.

“In a manner of speaking.”

“My advice? Loop those on your belt instead. You don’t want to be crawling around the dance floor looking for a dropped tag and we don’t do the honor system around here.”

The back of Obi-Wan’s ears prickle, and he is starting to wonder if he shouldn’t have given up his weapon so easily. “Do you cater to many thieves in this establishment?”

“ _This establishment,_ ” she repeats with a laugh. “You make it sound so posh. Nah, no problem with thieves here. But we’ve had too many mixups from beings that are so blasted high they couldn’t remember their home planet’s coordinates let alone their cloak check numbers. Management got tired of it.” She smiles, so big and friendly that her elongated canines wink back at Obi-Wan from the shadows of her dimly lit booth. “Relax. You’re here to party. So go on in and have a good time. Just don’t lose your tags.”

She swipes a screen and the inner door slides open to reveal chaos. The music isn’t a sound in here; it’s a solid. It is an onslaught. It pummels him mercilessly. It slams into his body, screams down his ears, and rearranges his internal organs. 

At twenty-five Obi-Wan is the same approximate age as everyone he sees. Even so he can’t shake the thought that he may be too old for this place. The door slides shut behind him and it’s too late to turn back now. He’s trapped with this cacophony, but seeing as he’s got nowhere better to go he steps deeper into the club.

A drink, he decides, would go a long way toward helping, or at the very least it couldn’t make any of this worse. Craning his neck, Obi-Wan finally spots a round bar, blue lights that trail like a string of comets chase along the rim. There's a human woman behind it, mixing drinks with all the unflinching vigor of a wartime general. 

It isn’t easy to get over there. Obi-Wan has walked through Hoth winds that were more hospitable than this ferocious blizzard of bodies and bass, but he soldiers on, sidestepping a pair of writhing Zabrak who all but fall into his arms as they dance, oblivious to anything but each other.

When the bartender turns her attention to Obi-Wan he opens his mouth to speak but he is stopped by her raised hand. She activates something under the bar and it raises a sound barrier around the two of them. With aching relief the sounds of the club fade away.

“Now I’m ready for you,” the bartender says, moping the tabletop with a stained rag that is frayed at the edges. “What’ll you have?”

Obi-Wan is at a loss. He’s never been much of a drinker so he tries to draw inspiration from the other patrons. There are drinks that glow pink, blue, orange. There are some in complicated glassware with paper umbrellas sticking out beside bright red berries. There are simple bottles with labels he only half recognizes. One desolate man is pounding back shots, his back turned away from the electric life behind him as he drinks himself into an early grave. When Obi-Wan’s no closer to an answer he asks: “What do you suggest?”

“Two questions.” She raises one finger in the air in front of Obi-Wan’s face. “One: how much do you want to think tonight?”

“Not much.” Or at all, if he can help it.

“Two.” A second finger is raised. “Does it matter if it hurts tomorrow?”

“No.”

“Perfect. I’ve got you,” she says before turning to her collection of bottles. 

In the protective hush of the sound barrier, Obi-Wan surveys the crowd. What he’d mistaken for sweat outside he can see now is glitter— bright, shimmering shards that flicker under the mercurial, ever-changing lights. An ambient fog hangs in the air, pierced by green and blue lines of lights, like moonlight as it skims an ocean planet’s surface. Then the lights flame red all at once and for a heart-jolting moment he’s back behind a red shield, hopeless and screaming, before the lights change to purple.

His drink can’t be ready soon enough.

Kohl-lined eyes had been all the rage when he was seventeen. He'd sat patiently in the ‘fresher in his room, the lid of the toilet cold through his tight, borrowed pants, while Garen darkened his eyes with a practiced hand. Qui-Gon had stepped through their connecting door just as Garen stepped back to admire his handiwork.

“What do you think, Master Jinn? Will Obi-Wan pass for a club kid now?”

Whatever Qui-Gon’s response had been is lost to Obi-Wan, taken hostage by forgetfulness and time, but what remains is the tight feeling he’d had in his chest when his master had left abruptly after that, tossing a stern admonishment to stay safe as he went. 

“Here,” the bartender slides him a drink in an off-putting shade of mauve. “Liquid courage.”

It tastes worse than it looks, but somehow the second one is better. By the third, Obi-Wan doesn’t mind much of anything anymore. He doesn’t pull away when beings glistening with sweat and glitter drag him onto the dance floor. He doesn’t worry his ear drums are going to rupture with every bass drop. He doesn’t even care when a pair of clever hands push open his tunic so that it hangs open around his bare chest. 

With a head that’s close to floating away, Obi-Wan embraces the music for what it is. He surrenders to the insistent pulse that bleeds from one song to the next. Synth and drums and vocals weave between the churning, moving masses. It binds them: to him, to each other, to this moment. He can feel the electric snare of the Force as it unifies everyone to one glorious—albeit hedonistic—purpose. Now he remembers why he’d been drawn here tonight. This is what he remembers from being here with Garen. This is what he was seeking. A night of losing himself, of drowning in the best possible way.

Confetti explodes overhead, falling down like rain on a parched desert. Through it all a mirrored ball hangs from the ceiling, still as a sentinel.

The bartender makes good on both of her promises: One, for the rest of the night Obi-Wan doesn’t think about today, last month, Naboo, his entire apprenticeship with Qui-Gon—any of it, all of it. Two, he is in a world of pain the next morning when he finally wakes up. 

Bleary eyes and heavy head. Glitter _everywhere_. Ears that ring with a high-pitched whine. As terrible as he feels, there’s something about having been so close to the Unifying Force in that sweaty club that’s settled a place in his chest that’s been dislodged ever since he’d looked up to see Qui-Gon leaning in his class’ doorway. Longer, if he’s honest with himself, though he’d rather not be. Instead he sits up and fights the immediate spector of nausea to work on getting the flecks of glitter off his skin.

Obi-Wan tries scrubbing it off with a towel. When the specks don’t budge Obi-Wan sits cross legged on his bed, picking it off his skin grain by grain with a fingernail. He decides it’s close enough to an exercise in patience that he can skip his meditation for today.

By the time he’s done it’s almost midday and he’s accomplished nothing else, though the pounding in his head has receded. Soon he’ll drag himself off to fumble his way through a kata and then it’ll be another afternoon spent white knuckling it through lessons with his students. It’s a small life. One he knows he ought to be glad for. 

He’s a Jedi knight, which is everything he’s wanted since he was a child in the crèche, and Jedi knights, don’t spend their off hours drinking and dancing until their bodies are sore. They don’t crave the humid embrace of strangers and music that rattles down to their bones and confetti cannons that leave them shaking gold ticker tape from their hair.

And yet. _And yet._


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ***  
> ***  
> Fair warning: we're about to enter into the anonymous sex with random strangers portion of this fic (there'll be QuiObi later I promise). If that's not your jam, proceed with caution.
> 
> ***  
> ***

It’s laughable to pretend that he isn’t going to go back again and soon. He considers making rules about when he can go and how deep he should let himself fall into it, or at the very least how many drinks he’s allowed so that he doesn’t completely crater his career before it’s really begun.

In the end he knows himself too well to try. Give Obi-Wan an unbreakable rule and he will only find a way to bend it just enough that it yields. He’s like his master that way.

He finally settles on going more often than he’d like but not nearly as often as he wants.

###

The door slides open and he absorbs the barrage of music, stepping into it like a warm bath.

The bartender powers up the sound barrier and asks: “The usual?” before turning to make the mauve drink Obi-Wan’s never bothered to learn the name of.

One night, by the time he pushes his way through the crowd, the mauve drink is waiting for him.

“The usual,” she says under the insulated quiet of the sound barrier and it’s no longer a question.

###

Picking glitter off his body as he works through his mindful breathing cycle becomes Obi-Wan’s new morning-after routine. The cycle is something the mind healers insisted he take up in the aftermath of killing the Sith. Obi-Wan wonders what they’d say if he told them about this nascent club kid lifestyle he’s developing. They’d probably be too busy typing up more assessments to add to his file and programming their admin droids to schedule another eon's worth of follow-up sessions to say much at all.

On the days he can trudge to the training salle early enough, Obi-Wan drills himself on Form III. He’s out of practice, not having had much use for Soresu since he was an initiate and required to learn all the dueling styles equally.

Qui-Gon preferred Ataru so that’s what they’d worked on until the form’s rolling flow had become second nature to Obi-Wan. Soresu’s short, truncated jabs aren’t nearly as satisfying to pass through but he’s finding it harder and harder to somersault and flip when he’s fighting a perpetual hangover.

He changes. He adapts.

He never once gives thought to never going back.

It’s a mindless compulsion. Like a daft migratory bird on the precipice of going extinct, he finds himself night after night returning to the place he knows he shouldn’t go. It might destroy him eventually, though he’s more resigned than anything. This is his life now. No saving the universe and keeping the forces of darkness at bay for Knight Kenobi. All that potential he’d overheard his teachers talk about is gone. Fizzled out. Like a powered on lightsaber dunked in a lake and just as useless.

In his darker moments, when the morning light burns his retinas that much brighter and his hangover is all but incendiary, Obi-Wan wonders if this isn’t a compulsion at all. He’d started his apprenticeship with Qui-Gon with a detonator around his neck, maybe his lizard brain feels it only right he self-immolate now that it’s over. Finish what Xanatos had started in that mine on Bandomeer. There’s a glorious, terrible symmetry to the notion—a balance that borders on poetic—and Obi-Wan likes poetry enough to not discount it entirely.

###

Obi-Wan twists through the crowd, easing between eager hands and curling bodies. He’s only just arrived, yet by the time he reaches the bar he’s already smeared with glitter.

Nodding, the bartender slides a mauve drink across the slick counter into his hand, no sound barrier necessary.

He is officially a regular.

Now the bouncer waves him to the front of the line on nights the district is so windy the bridges creak with menace. The cloak check girl warns him when it’s a foam party night so that he can hand her his tunic, too, instead of having to wake up and deal with phosphorescent stains on his clothes along with all the glitter.

The glitter never gets easier to deal with.

###

Training isn’t going well.

Sweat prickles between Obi-Wan’s shoulder blades and gathers at the corner of his eye as he cuts upwards with his lightsaber once, twice, before finding the stillness that would some day conserve his body’s energy against an opponent. Today it’s a moment to reflect on why he needs to be more cautious when they offer a two-for-one special on drinks at the club.

His form is sloppy, his feet are as heavy as carbonite turned solid, and there’s a song they played six times last night that now he can’t get out of his throbbing head.

Which is why it isn’t a surprise to see Qui-Gon step through the door of the private room Obi-Wan intentionally reserved so that no one could see the sorry mess he’s become. He hadn’t heard that Qui-Gon was back, but it does make perfect sense that he’s now trapped in a room with the one being in the entire galaxy that he would least want to see in this state.

“Your hair is longer,” Qui-Gon notes as Obi-Wan powers down his lightsaber, catching his breath now that he’s come to the end of the sequence. “It suits you.”

“Anything would have been an improvement,” he says, deflecting with polite self-deprecation.

“Soresu?”

So this is what it’s all come to: making intolerable small talk with Qui-Gon Jinn. It’s awkward and in all the ways Obi-Wan has known Qui-Gon over the years, he’s never suffered through an awkwardness like this before.

“Indeed.”

There’s a vast expanse between them that has nothing to do with the size of the training chamber. Once upon a time Obi-Wan could be an entire star system away from Qui-Gon without encountering a chasm like this. It’s made worse by the smooth nothingness he feels in the Force where the tendrils of his shielding and Qui-Gon’s push away from each other, like two magnets with the same polarity.

Obi-Wan powers up his lightsaber again, a clear signal that the conversation is over, but Qui-Gon shows no signs of leaving. Propping a foot on a training block so that he can lean a forearm on it, he watches Obi-Wan drill the Soresu sequence over again from the top.

Qui-Gon doesn’t offer any corrections or encouragement. He observes wordlessly, and Obi-Wan can feel those unbearably blue eyes soaking up every shift of his feet, every slash of his blade.

When he’s finished, Qui-Gon hands him a towel to mop up his sweat and it’s only weird by how not-weird it is to be attended to like this by his master. Former master. Qui-Gon. Obi-Wan grips his shields just a little closer, as if the lapse could be blamed on a structural issue rather than a weakness in his own heart.

“Mastering the style gives me something to work towards until the Council sees fit to send me on my first mission,” Obi-Wan says as if their conversation hadn’t been interrupted by an entire kata.

“You haven’t been out yet?” Qui-Gon is taken aback by what he hears. He’s suddenly closer than he had been and Obi-Wan reflectively steps away, maintaining their measure like the good little swordsman that he is. Qui-Gon doesn’t seem to notice. “But it’s been half a year since your knighting.”

“I’m sure the Council has their reasons. For the time being I am at the mercy of their collective wisdom.”

“Do you want me to put a word in with Mace?”

“Are you even on speaking terms with him after the chosen one debacle?” It’s out before he can stop himself. Qui-Gon draws up taller, adjusting his posture as if preparing for a clash of ‘sabers rather than a battle of words.

Once Obi-Wan might have stubbornly defended his words, taking on Qui-Gon with a tenacity that might be called—in fact had been called, by Qui-Gon himself, on multiple occasions—bantha-headed.

This is different.

Just an unfortunate slip up among colleagues, Obi-Wan coaches his mind. He means to keep Qui-Gon at a professional distance since that's all that's left between them. There is no reason to antagonize him further, not when Qui-Gon will probably be gone by week’s end while Obi-Wan will still be here, alone amid a Temple full of Jedi.

Before Qui-Gon can mount an offensive Obi-Wan takes the moral high ground, bowing respectfully. “Forgive me, Master Jinn. That was an improper and thoughtless remark for which I can only beg your pardon.”

He’s surprised Qui-Gon. Obi-Wan can see it by the way his blue eyes flicker with confusion, in how his shoulders deflate the barest of fractions.

Obi-Wan has surprised himself a little, too.

He waits for his apology to be acknowledged, instead Qui-Gon offers one of his own. “Your anger is not misplaced. I imagine you were unhappy with the way your apprenticeship ended and I’m sorry if I caused you pain when I took Anakin on." He raises his chin. Defiant. "But I firmly believe he is the chosen one and—”

“—and I’m certain he will do your teachings proud.”

Obi-Wan cuts him off with another contrite bow, defanging the conversation before it’s venom has the chance to pierce him once more. The place in Obi-Wan that has never accepted unfairness with grace howls out. Instead he swallows it down.

“Like you did,” Qui-Gon says, taking Obi-Wan by the shoulder with a paternal familiarity that he wants to shake off.

The person Obi-Wan used to be would say something withering— _Like I never could_ —but the new Obi-Wan is determined to be a Koya tree, bending and unbothered by the baying wind. He wants this conversation to be over and he’s willing to give up the high ground with Qui-Gon for the rest of his life if that’s what it takes.

“You flatter me,” he says with a final bow before collecting his things and slipping away, leaving an uprooted Qui-Gon behind.

###

Obi-Wan feels reckless. Self-destructive.

This is the cost of having left Qui-Gon without a fight—this jolting feeling like he’s an over-charged blaster with no one around to pull the trigger.

He’s already had four mauve drinks, tipping them back one after the other like they’re shots, but they’ve done nothing to clear his mind. This world of sound is still too real, too immediate, when he’d really like to drift off into the ether and writhe about among strangers for a little while.

Obi-Wan can’t stop thinking about Qui-Gon. Their conversation runs in an eternal loop in his mind, a glitching holovid that he can’t turn off. He rubs his face so hard white novas burst behind his eyelids. _I imagine you were unhappy,_ he’d said. _Your anger is not misplaced,_ he’d said. On and on and Obi-Wan wonders if he should hunt down a Klip tablet from the beings he knows are standing along the club’s furthest walls. If it can be snorted, licked, swallowed, injected, or chewed, they’re ready to sell it to you, and Obi-Wan is desperate enough to try it all.

Bursts of confetti flutter down from the ceiling and Obi-Wan reaches up with an impatient hand to swat it off his head.

_Your hair is longer. It suits you._

He’s going mad.

This is supposed to be his escape, a place where he can leave the suffocating walls of the Temple behind and commune with the Unifying Force in the only place where it will speak to him anymore. What is he supposed to do—where is he supposed to go—when his escape is no longer a place he can hide?

There’s no pleasure in dancing when he feels like an open wound, aching more with every touch. He’s about to give up and go home when large human hands find his hips. Obi-Wan turns to see a tall, clean-shaven man who is older than Obi-Wan but only just. He has his blond hair tied in a messy top knot and his eyes are a shade of blue that Obi-Wan can’t bring himself to look away from.

“Hey,” the man says, smiling crookedly, his voice only just audible over the music.

“Hey,” Obi-Wan says, reflecting back his words and his smile.

It begins as dancing but the more they close the distance between them, the quicker they do away with what was always a pretense. Soon they are trading biting kisses, hips grinding together in a rhythm that has little to do with the music and everything to do with want.

They break apart to breathe, and the man presses his lips close to Obi-Wan’s ear. “Let’s get out of here,” he suggests.

Obi-Wan gets fucked in a back alley, his forehead hot against the building's rough, wind-chapped cement.

It is a feverish coupling, equal parts pleasure and pain, but that’s exactly the way he needs it to be.


	4. Chapter 4

The next morning Obi-Wan finds a red mark on his forehead where he’d rubbed the skin away on the back alley’s cement wall. He curses to see his medpac is out of bacta bandages and try as he might, his bangs are not yet long enough to pull over it. The mark looks worse than it feels, and if it weren’t so noticeable he might ignore it until it healed on its own. 

It is, unfortunately, _very_ noticeable. 

Obi-Wan leaves for the healers with his hood pulled up and his head lowered, wary of being seen. Back when they were padawans, Garen had laughingly dubbed the long walk back to his room from a friend’s after sex his “walk of shame.” Obi-Wan feels like this is his.

“What happened?” the healer on call asks and Obi-Wan flushes red, breaking into a jittery sweat as he remembers.

“Training mishap,” he says and leaves it at that.

###

Celibacy has never interested Obi-Wan. He knows there are Jedi that have been called by the Force to stay detached from their desires, but he never has felt that pull. Instead, Obi-Wan has appreciated the handful of encounters he’s had over the years for what they were: easy, casual sex with friends. Nothing serious, just simple arrangements with those that were as busy serving the will of the Order throughout the galaxy as he was.

This is so different from that.

These men—and they’re always men, humans that are tall enough that he has to stretch long to wrap his arms around their necks when they kiss—never give their names and Obi-Wan doesn’t ask. 

He never used to be picky when it came to gender or species. Now he likes it when their noses are crooked or their eyes are blue. Even better if they have a beard.

Force help him, he’s developing a “type.”

Obi-Wan is introduced to a backroom that’s kept so dark it’s difficult to tell how many are in there, though there’s no doubt what they’re doing. Something about the inky darkness and the smell of humid sex emboldens him and he pins the man he’s with against a wall before dropping to his knees.

He is pulled into quiet nooks and dark alcoves. He’s led through corridors and across catwalks. Eventually he knows it all well enough that he is the one drawing men in, he’s the one saying: “It’s okay, no one will see us here.”

Most nights, though, Obi-Wan is just there to dance. 

The man from the alley doesn’t come to the club very often. When he does they fall into the same pattern as that first time. Dancing and kissing until Obi-Wan loses the ability to stand, and then a back alley where he can brace himself while he’s fucked from behind. It’s rougher than Obi-Wan ever thought he’d enjoy, but enjoy it he does. Obi-Wan makes sure his medpac has an extra stash of bacta for those occasions, as few and far between as they are. He won’t take these scuff marks to the healers again if he can help it.

“What can I call you?” he asks Obi-Wan one night and Obi-Wan balks at losing his anonymity until he realizes that _what can I call you?_ is very different from _what’s your name?_ so he goes with the first thing that pops into his mind.

“Ben,” he says, losing his breath halfway through with the next thrust. Then because it seems polite he asks: “You?”

“Epic.”

Obi-Wan is annoyed at himself. He hadn’t realized he could have picked literally anything—any _word_ —he’d wanted. It's too late to change it though, because he is growling “Ben” in Obi-Wan’s ear as he does something with his hand, and Obi-Wan doesn’t care what he’s called as long this doesn’t stop.

###

Yoda tracks Obi-Wan down as he’s dismissing his class for the day. The students vibrate with curiosity to see the small master, though they are able to channel enough Jedi stoicism to make it through the door before they break into loud, excited chatter. Their voices carry into the classroom, falling like autumn leaves to where Obi-Wan stands, arms crossed.

He isn’t angry. Their enthusiasm is amusing, mostly since he doesn’t hear a single one of them mention the words “Sith” or “killer.”

“Should I be giving them disciplinary marks?” Obi-Wan asks, head tilting with his question as their voices fade away the further they drift. “Engaging in petty gossip seems like something we ought to be discouraging.”

A lock of copper hair falls into his eyes and he tucks it behind his ear. It’s been so long since he was knighted that Epic can now almost completely wrap Obi-Wan’s hair around his fist when they fuck, and that’s a measurement of time that Obi-Wan doesn’t see becoming galaxy standard anytime soon. When his hair isn’t being pulled by strapping men in alleys, Obi-Wan keeps the top half tied back and leaves the rest down. It works well enough, even if not an hour goes by that some piece or other doesn’t escape their binding.

“Gossip is unbecoming of a Jedi, true enough, but judge them not we should,” Yoda says, leaning on his walking stick. “Were it not for a matter of gossip, young Kenobi, I would not be seeking you out today.”

“Gossip?” Obi-Wan’s stomach plunges to his knees and he can feel the blood in his cheeks disappear all at once. “About me, my Master?”

Yoda nods and his knees threaten to buckle. Obi-Wan manages to stay upright through sheer bloody mindedness. _They know. Oh Force, the Council knows._ Celibacy isn’t required by the Order, but a certain level of decorum is.

“I see,” Obi-Wan says, palming the door locked so that passerbys won’t overhear them. He doesn’t need to add any more to his disgrace. “I have a kettle unit in my supply closet. Would you care for some tea?”

He knows there’s no way to stall this conversation forever, but he needs a moment to gather himself if he’s going to look Yoda in the eye and explain why he’s forsaken his hard won Jedi training to pursue a pathway paved with licentiousness. 

They wait for the tea to finish steeping as they settle onto a rug by the window, crossed legs mirroring one another. Outside he can see the steady zip of Coruscant air traffic as it passes. Beings are going about their days out there, today no different from any other. Inside his hands won’t stop shaking as he pours amber tea into two chipped, white cups. Obi-Wan knows that whatever he’s been worried about—whatever this thing is that he’s been doing, whatever great crescendo he’s been building toward—this is the moment it comes to its natural, catastrophic conclusion. 

Tea splashes over Yoda’s hand as Obi-Wan passes him a cup, his own hands too unsteady for such a delicate task. Yoda must sense his despair because he hums consolingly as he reaches for the tea towel.

“Peace, Obi-Wan.” Yoda says kindly, placing a quelling hand on Obi-Wan’s knee when it’s dry. “Speak we must. Worry not over spilled tea.”

Obi-Wan nods as he swallows past the thick knot in his throat. “Yes. The gossip. Tell me, Master Yoda, what have you heard?”

“Persuaded, many of the Council have become that you should be sent out for a mission. Your first as a Jedi knight, it would be.”

Obi-Wan has never been pushed out of an airlock into deep space, but he’s seen it happen and he imagines that this must be what it feels like. A whoosh as all available oxygen escapes lungs. A violent wrench into free fall. A gentle drifting as brain matter and cells and mitochondria fold in on themselves. He’s floating, he’s collapsing. Fear and worry and relief and gratitude have rendered him blind, deaf, and mute. Yoda is still speaking but Obi-Wan can’t possibly know what he’s saying. He’s too busy being rearranged at a molecular level.

“—if concur you do with the assessment, out you will be sent.” he hears Yoda say at last, sound returning again.

Obi-Wan carefully moves his tea cup and kettle from the floor in front of them to somewhere to his side. He can’t speak, he’s too overcome. A mission. After all this time: a mission. He’d long ago given up hope, he’d given up heart. Now here it is. After a year of being overlooked and passed by, here is the thing he’s been waiting for. Offered to him, at long, painful last, just as easily as that. 

Words are lost to him, so Obi-Wan bows to Yoda until his forehead comes to rest on the Jedi master’s knee. He feels Yoda’s hand touch the back of his head and it is a benediction. A kindness. Heat burns through his throat, fills his eyes, and before he can wrestle for composure he is weeping—on the floor of his classroom, between two chipped tea cups— anchored by the gentle press of Yoda’s palm. 

###

The first mission is easy enough— he is tasked with bringing a locked trunk to a planet so that a coronation can take place. He’s less a knight of the Order and more a courier with a really bright sword, but he is buoyant the entire time. He’d _missed_ this. He can hardly believe there was once a time he took even the most banal assignment for granted. It reminds him of all those times he’d complained to Qui-Gon that their talents were better suited elsewhere and his master had laughed and said “If this is the path that you choose to walk then you will have to learn to embrace tedium, Obi-Wan.”

He isn’t gone long, only a few days. Still, he lands at the docking bay a changed man. His first mission: done. The sky is a brilliant, smoke-choked coral as the sun sets. Obi-Wan’s airtaxi drops him off in front of the Temple, and he slings his travel bag over his shoulder. It’s a little early for it, but he needs something to do with this energy that he’s been flying high on. It isn’t even a conscious thought. His feet tread over bridges and down skyramps to follow the familiar path to the club’s front doors.

“Little early, aren’t you?” the bouncer asks, glancing up with a significant flip of his head to where the sky had only just turned indigo. “Think you brought enough stuff with you, Ben?” the cloak check girl teases when she takes his rucksack and sends it down a tube with the rest of his things. “There’s someone here that looks like your type,” the bartender says with a point into the crowd, her voice carrying easily over music that hasn’t quite swollen to the usual vociferous levels yet.

He starts to deliberately chart his course home with an eye toward docking around nightfall, Coruscant time. Exactly the right time to take a side trip to the club before reporting with the Council in the morning. At first it’s because he wants to celebrate successfully finishing yet another mission as a knight. Then, as he’s sent into more and more danger, it’s so that he can forget the things he’s seen. He gets plenty of chances to try his newly honed Soresu technique in combat and finds that while he still feels perfectly comfortable using the sweeping arcs of Ataru, there’s something in the stillness of Soresu that he appreciates, too.

He’s content, bordering on happy, but sometimes the quiet of space is suffocating. Obi-Wan is given the use of one of the Temple’s small ships to pilot and he makes good time, skipping from star system to star system like a stone across water and just as alone. He tries meditating, but the clearer his mind becomes, the more the vacuum he creates fills with memories of Qui-Gon—observations he’d shared or wisdoms he’d passed on. He heads towards a conflict and all he can imagine is what Qui-Gon might say about the situation. On the way back, he wonders what Qui-Gon might have done differently. 

He’s in a market on Shelkonwa when Obi-Wan finally gives in and buys a music player that will interface with his ship’s intercom unit. Now he can blast techno so loudly it rattles the ship’s controls, which is probably terrible for his hearing but great for his concentration. Cradled in the deafening pulse of the music he is able to clear his mind and he wonders with a smile curving his lips what would happen if he tried to bring his new player into the meditation garden next time he’s there.

Obi-Wan turns twenty-six hurtling through hyperspace, music blasting from the cabin’s speakers so loudly he imagines the planets must tremble as he passes by. 

###

He’s near a remote Rim planet when he gets the call: a master and padawan are stranded in an asteroid belt and he’s the nearest available Jedi for several thousand parsecs. The message is too garbled to pick up much more than that, so Obi-Wan gives up trying and punches in the coordinates of their last known location. 

It takes some looking, but eventually Obi-Wan spots an escape pod floating like detritus among the asteroid debris. He powers down his music player to make contact.

“This is Knight Kenobi. I’m here to rescue you.”

The voice that eventually comes through is reedy and faint—from the fading connection or the lack of life support, it’s hard to tell. 

“Knight Kenobi. This is Master Jinn. We welcome your assistance.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ********
> 
> I apologize now for any formatting issues. Me and the posting box are in a fight.
> 
> ********

Anakin is an alarming shade of grey when he stumbles onto Obi-Wan’s ship with Qui-Gon close behind. Obi-Wan can’t bring himself to look at Qui-Gon so he kneels beside the place Anakin collapses and places a hand against the boy’s chest. Obi-Wan monitors each inhale and exhale, reaching out with the Force until he can trace Anakin’s vital signs like he’d been taught to do when he was a padawan, himself.

“Are you alright, Anakin?” he asks softly and receives a fluttering blink in return. “Anakin?”

“Yeah,” he says eventually, stuttering and quick. “I’m alright.”

“What happened?” Obi-Wan asks the padawan but his master answers. 

“Pirates. Our transport was besieged.” Obi-Wan can hear Qui-Gon’s lungs are reaching for oxygen just as intently as Anakin’s are, for all that he’s trying to be quieter about it.

“Should we give chase?”

“No,” and Obi-Wan is surprised enough by that to look up. Qui-Gon towers over him, a looming presence with the same carved-out cheekbones and darkly-hanging hair as he’s ever had. Nothing is unexpected in his appearance. Why, then, did it ache so much to look at him? “No. The crew all escaped. All they left behind for the pirates to find was their cargo.”

_Their cargo and two Jedi,_ Obi-Wan thinks, starting to piece together what must have led to them slowly dying in an escape pod in the middle of nowhere. Not that Qui-Gon was letting on that he had come so close to death yet again. Even air-starved and leaning on the hull for support Qui-Gon burns with vitality, stubborn to his bones.

“Thank you for your assistance Knight Kenobi, but I can take over with my padawan from here.”

That smarts a bit, but Anakin isn’t his apprentice to attend to so Obi-Wan draws away.

“Of course." He points to the narrow galley that he’s fashioned into a part medbay/storage/food prep station. "The ship’s medkit leaves much to be desired but you are welcome to anything you find in there."

There aren’t many places he can retreat to so Obi-Wan returns to the cockpit. He shuts the pilot’s door, leaving them to heal together in relative privacy.

###

When he finally ventures out again Obi-Wan finds them sitting at the ships’ lone, round table. There’s a carafe of tea between them and he can see the edges of a bacta bandage peeking out from Anakin’s collar. Obi-Wan only means to grab a meal pouch and leave but Anakin hastily scrunches against the wall to make room. It feels too rude not to join them, even if that table is the last place Obi-Wan wants to be trapped behind. 

Qui-Gon’s long legs are folded tight, as small as he can make himself in the cramped quarters. Despite the effort, Obi-Wan can feel their knees pressing together as he settles in.

“Feeling better yet?” he asks Anakin, ignoring Qui-Gon as much as he can considering their legs are practically wrapped together below the table top’s chrome surface.

“Yeah.”

Obi-Wan fixes him with an overly stern eye, raising his eyebrow for effect. “Are you lying to me again?”

Anakin flashes a quicksilver grin. “No. Not this time. This time I really am feeling alright. Qui-Gon made us meditate in there to save oxygen. It was kinda like powering down a droid, I think. I just needed a moment to reboot.”

“That's a good way of seeing it,” Obi-Wan says with a smile. There’s a weariness to Anakin that is new, a grimness that is out of place with the sweet, sunny boy that had barrelled into Obi-Wan in the Temple halls. Part of that tempering is to be expected with age, but Obi-Wan knows only too well the mark that Qui-Gon’s relentless mission-hopping can make.

“Anyway, I wasn't worried. I knew you were coming for us.”

Qui-Gon looks up sharply from where he’s been intensely scrutinizing his tea. “You felt him through the Force?”

“Yeah, why?” Anakin asks, perplexed. “Couldn’t you?”

An awkwardness hangs in the air at Anakin’s question, and it becomes more weighted the longer both men keep their gazes trained away and say nothing. The truth is their shields are locked so tightly against one another that womp rats couldn’t even chew through their defenses.

“I suppose I wasn’t looking for him,” Qui-Gon says at last, ending the silence.

“Well,” shrugs Anakin and then says with all the accidental wisdom of a child: “Maybe you should.”

###

Obi-Wan tells them they can have the bunk as Anakin fights back a yawn. He powers the ship down until the lights are set to a dim twilight and bids them goodnight as he retreats to the cockpit once again. Engines hum contentedly and for once Obi-Wan doesn’t feel the need to shy away from the quiet. He embraces it, sinking into the languid whir of the ship as it flies with steady intent. The lights on the steering console flicker like the stars outside his windshield. He’ll make another hyperspace leap in a little bit. For now he sits back to admire the yawning vastness of space.

Hours pass as the ship slices toward Coruscant on autopilot. Obi-Wan tries to close his eyes but sleep is elusive, so he meditates instead. Through his measured breaths he can feel the plates of armour he’s been carrying since he’d heard Qui-Gon’s voice come through the comm start to creak and fall away. With every deep exhale he releases he can feel himself shift, tiptoeing that much closer to enlightenment. When Obi-Wan finally surfaces it’s in gentle, blinking increments as he becomes reoriented to the physical realm around him.

Heart lighter, Obi-Wan leaves the cockpit to stretch out his legs. 

He finds Qui-Gon awake and sitting at the table with his head bowed, deep in thought. The glow from the emergency lights throw half of his face into shadow as he regards the cup in his hands.

“More tea?” Obi-Wan asks.

“Caff,” comes the answer. “I’ve given up on sleep for the time being.”

If they are staying true to their established pattern, one of them should walk away, but Obi-Wan doesn’t feel that caged animal drive to get away from Qui-Gon this time. His meditation has helped Obi-Wan peel away his fears and hurt until all that is left is a boundless calm that makes him feel both terribly small and unspeakably large. He knows this feeling for what it is: perspective.

Now he’s ready to face Qui-Gon again.

Obi-Wan slides in until he’s sitting across the table from Qui-Gon. Without Anakin sitting with them there’s now space to angle his legs and it’s almost like they aren’t touching at all. Obi-Wan doesn’t speak. He knows he no longer has the right to demand entry into Qui-Gon’s thoughts— that simply isn’t his place in Qui-Gon’s life any longer. Whatever burden Qui-Gon is wrestling with, it is for him to decide how much to let Obi-Wan share in its weight. Obi-Wan is only there to be a silent presence so that Qui-Gon doesn’t feel so alone.

At long last, Qui-Gon begins to speak. “What happened with the pirates was a careless mistake. It all could have been avoided. Instead it almost claimed both of our lives.” He finally moves to bring his cup of caff up to drink, lost to his memories. “I expected too much of Anakin. I was pushing him, expecting that he would react like you would, but Anakin isn't you.”

“He’s young,” Obi-Wan says. For all that he’d felt scalded last year to be replaced as padawan so abruptly, Obi-Wan takes no pleasure in hearing Qui-Gon’s words. “Younger than I was when I became your apprentice. And I had the benefit of being brought up at the Temple, of receiving the same breadth of foundational learning that you did. It’s no wonder we found our rhythm together so quickly.”

“I hadn’t considered that,” Qui-Gon admits with a frown.

Obi-Wan doesn’t fight the gentle smile that curves his lips, teasing: “A curriculum built on tens of thousands of years’s worth of collective Jedi wisdom might know a thing or two on how to prepare a child to be a padawan.” Qui-Gon nods, conceding the point so Obi-Wan presses on. “But that can be rectified easily enough. Spend less time in the field, more time at the Temple so that he can catch up with his age mates—” 

“Is that what you would counsel me to do?” Qui-Gon cuts in abruptly, angrier than his placid surface had prepared Obi-Wan for. “Stay in Coruscant and neglect my duties as a peacekeeper? How can I serve the galaxy from there?”

Instead of matching Qui-Gon’s outrage with outrage of his own, Obi-Wan can’t help but laugh. “It’s not as if you’d be the only master in the entire history of the Jedi to be Temple-bound while his padawan completed a core curriculum.”

Obi-Wan lays his palms down so that they are splayed on the table’s cool surface. It is a show of peace and Qui-Gon’s eyes follow the movement as his anger burns off as quickly as a flame that’s been deprived of oxygen. “Think of where we found the boy, Qui-Gon. Think of what his life was like in Tatooine. I don't imagine he was given any more education than whatever his owner thought would add to his value. I mean, by the Force, Qui-Gon—can the boy even read?”

“Of course he can.” Qui-Gon says without thinking and then stops to actually consider the question. “That is, I think he can. Now I'm not sure.”

“Take him to the Temple.” Obi-Wan says, placing his hands on top of Qui-Gon’s where they are still wrapped around his cup of caff. “Let him stay until he’s more prepared. I promise you, the galaxy will still keep ticking on even if Qui Gon Jinn isn't out there to watch it happen.”

Qui-Gon stares at where Obi-Wan’s hands rest on top of his, but he makes no move to pull away. “I've been neglectful,” he says at long last.

“I wouldn't say neglectful. Short-sighted, perhaps. Anakin is clever, though, he’ll get there.”

“He will. I have faith in that,” Qui-Gon says. “I have faith in him.”

“Good,” Obi-Wan says, and even though it demolishes every carefully laid boundary they’ve only just built together, he takes a fortifying breath and forges ahead. “Because it is a terrible strain, embarking on an apprenticeship while the specter of a previous padawan still haunts your master. You could be excused for it happening once, Qui-Gon, but twice is a cruelty.”

Qui-Gon’s eyes widen and Obi-Wan has seen him suffer a killing blow once before to know that he’s just received another.

Obi-Wan withdraws his hands and leaves.

###

Qui-Gon finds him in the cockpit, where Obi-Wan is punching in the commands that will take them on another jump through hyperspace. Whatever sense of calm that Obi-Wan had cloaked himself in for their conversation has raveled away, leaving in its place the churning uncertainty that’s become his new resting state.

_Ah, well,_ Obi-Wan sighs. _Enlightenment was nice while it lasted._

“I apologize if I overstepped my bounds,” Obi-Wan says, not turning to look up from his task.

“No apology needed. Those were all very astute observations.” Qui-Gon sighs from behind Obi-Wan’s shoulder. “I believe hearing them did me quite a bit of good.”

“Then I’m glad I could be of assistance.”

“I've always valued your insight, Obi-Wan. Even when you were young. But I see now a change in you. You've grown into your own and it humbles me. You—” he cuts himself off, searching for his words while Obi-Wan goes so still he doesn’t even breathe. “You humble me, Obi-Wan.” 

Qui-Gon’s words are spoken with such immense gravitas that they hit Obi-Wan like a physical thing, saturating him with their honesty until Obi-Wan is bathed in it. He shivers and doesn’t try to fight it. Instead he sits there and lets the sentiment work into his body, burrowing through his pores and bones until it can nestle somewhere deep and secret in his soul.

“Well,” Obi-Wan says when he’s ready, swiveling his chair so that he can face Qui-Gon. He clears his throat. “Someone has to keep you humble. Force knows you won't do it, if left to your own devices.”

Qui-Gon is startled into a laugh—a rich, velvety chuckle that rolls through the enclosed space like the gentlest thunder. Qui-Gon’s laugh, that gorgeous sound, is a palliative. There’s been a solid knot in Obi-Wan’s chest ever since Naboo and hearing that laugh again—having been the one to inspire it—has shifted that knot the slightest of degrees and now all he feels is sagging relief. It’s like splinting a broken leg: painful at the offset, yes, but now he’s no longer limping.

As if summoned by the atmospheric drop in tension, Anakin pokes his head into the cockpit. His eyes are sunken by sleeplessness, and Qui-Gon reaches for him instinctively. Fondly. Obi-Wan is glad to bear witness to it.

“What are you doing up?” Qui-Gon asks and Anakin shrugs. 

“Couldn’t sleep. Are you two finally okay now?”

“I believe so,” Qui-Gon says, glancing at Obi-Wan who nods.

“Oh good. Because I was seriously thinking of crawling back into that escape pod and aiming it at a black hole if this all went on for much longer.”

Obi-Wan laughs behind his hand as Qui-Gon crosses his arms with a scowl at his padawan. Anakin takes no notice of Qui-Gon, instead he pushes his way further into the cockpit so that he can tinker with buttons as he inspects the ship’s controls.

“I take it back,” Obi-Wan says. “You don’t need me anymore. It seems our young Anakin will be able to keep you humble all on his own.”

Anakin is inspecting the weapons system of the ship when he asks sideways “So, Obi-Wan, now that you two aren’t mad at each other, I gotta ask: did you mean to wear your hair like Qui-Gon’s or is that just an accident?”

“What?” Obi-Wan’s hand flies up to touch his head. “No. What?”

Anakin cackles, delighted. “So you really didn’t notice? And no one thought to bring it up to you?”

“I— I guess I haven’t spoken to many people since I started to grow it out.”

“Seriously?” Anakin’s eyes are incredulous and saucer-big. “Haven't you been at the Temple all year? And aren’t you like a big shot there? None of your friends said anything to you? Or is it that they’re too intimidated after the whole killing a Sith thing to be honest with you?”

“I—” Obi-Wan reels from the rapid-fire questioning.

“Alright, Ani, I think that’s enough interrogating Obi-Wan for one millenia,” Qui-Gon cuts in. Anakin doesn’t seem put out, though, and Obi-Wan can only assume it’s because he’s gotten used to Qui-Gon’s gentle reigning in of his manic curiosity.

“Hey, this is an interesting mod. What's this do?” Anakin asks. He doesn’t wait for an answer, instead he turns on the music player which screams to life, pouring a torrential storm of sound through the ship.

Anakin’s mouth drops open as the thudding, grinding, pulsing music shakes the air and Obi-Wan can feel it in his teeth.

“Wizard! I didn't know you were into this stuff!” Anakin screams to be heard as the synthetic vocals start intoning “ _Fuck the pain away. Fuck the pain away. Fuck the pain away_ ” until Qui-Gon reaches over to power down the player, brightly saying: “Alright, I think that’s enough of that.”

Obi-Wan is mortified. His face isn’t blushing so much as it’s combusting. His soul is leaving his body and he’s glad that it, at least, can escape this horrifying existence.

“I thought Jedis at your age were all into wind pipes and chimes and that sort of thing?”

“I’m twenty-six, Anakin,” Obi-Wan grinds through his teeth. “I’m not ancient.” 

Anakin turns to look at Obi-Wan with his eyebrows raised and it’s clear from his expression that as far as he’s concerned “twenty-six” and “ancient” are synonymous. Obi-Wan takes it all back. Anakin isn’t a clever, sunny-faced boy at all. He’s a cruel, heartless menace that must be stopped. 

“Let's leave Obi-Wan to his piloting, shall we?” Qui-Gon swoops in to hustle his charge out of the cockpit. Before he goes, Qui-Gon leans in close, eyes dancing with amusement. “This was all _very_ educational.”

With a strangled cry Obi-Wan buries his burning face in his hands as Qui-Gon’s laughter floats through the stale, recycled air.

###

In the galley Qui-Gon is humming while he makes a simple breakfast for the three of them as Obi-Wan works through a kata. Holding the unlit hilt of his lightsaber, Obi-Wan keeps a watchful eye on the limitations of the space around him. The truce he and Qui-Gon had brokered two days prior has held firm and as they near Coruscant the three of them have settled into a quiet harmony. 

“So that’s Soresu?” Anakin asks, chin propped in his hands as he watches Obi-Wan from the table.

“It is,” Obi-Wan says without interrupting his flow.

“It doesn’t look very exciting.”

“What it lacks in flash, it more than makes up for in economy of movement.”

“Huh?”

“You can use it for longer before you get tired.” Obi-Wan continues the kata, scrupulously ignoring Anakin as the boy grumbles _you couldn’t have just said that?_ “It also has the benefit of being one of the few forms that you can practice locked in a tiny ship with an overly curious padawan and his large, Wookie-limbed master.”

“I guess so.” Anakin doesn’t sound convinced.

“I know so,” Obi-Wan says. “Have you ever tried somersaulting in a fight where there’s low overhead clearance?” He can hear Qui-Gon laugh as he remembers the same mission that Obi-Wan is thinking of, the one where they’d taken on fire inside the long, low administrative buildings on the mining planet Berea. “You only make _that_ mistake once.”

“You would do well to watch Obi-Wan, padawan,” Qui-Gon chimes in. “When you start your Temple learning they’ll want you to master all the forms, not just the one preferred by your master.”

“I’ll get my lightsaber,” Anakin says, hurrying towards the bunk.

Obi-Wan waits for Anakin to return, taking a moment to push his hair behind his ear. After Anakin’s little observation Obi-Wan had stopped tying his hair back. Now it falls around him when he moves, a curtain that he has yet to get used to. He wonders if it wouldn’t be more sensible to cut the whole thing short and be done with it. 

Finished with his cooking, Qui-Gon squeezes through the galley, balancing the meal in one hand for its journey to the table. As he passes by, he places a steadying palm on Obi-Wan’s lower back, leaning in to murmur in Obi-Wan’s ear: “For what it’s worth, I like your hair better this way.”

Obi-Wan’s lightsaber fumbles out of his grasp and clatters to the floor. He spins around to glare at Qui-Gon who is smirking, softly singing out the song he’s been humming all this time: “Fuck the pain away. Fuck the pain away….” 

It’s a nice moment, made nicer by the happiness Obi-Wan can sense in the air around Qui-Gon. They haven't fully released their psychic shielding—they’ve been cocooned from one another for too long to try that so easily—but they have lowered it enough that they can taste the outer edges of each other’s thoughts again.

It’s the sort of moment that Obi-Wan can start to relax in, to trust that after everything they’ve been through, they may soon be out of the worst of it.

Of course, since danger follows Qui-Gon like stink on a Hutt that is when the pirates attack.


	6. Chapter 6

Obi-Wan runs a hand across his cheek. It’s no longer stubble that greets his palm but the barest beginnings of a beard. He’d meant to shave before they docked. By then, though, the ship that the attacking pirates had all but rendered scrap metal wasn’t the only one on autopilot. Getting them all back on course to Coruscant after the pirate business had been, all in all, a fourteen day side trip that they hadn’t been fully stocked for. Obi-Wan almost suggested they make a stop for extra supplies then thought better of it. They had enough food and the only thing they’d really been lacking was bacta. Instead Obi-Wan wrapped the last bandage around Anakin’s knee and silently pushed their hyperdrive that much harder until they’d finally made it planet-side. 

Qui-Gon has to all but drag Anakin out of the airtaxi when it drops them off in front of the Temple. The boy had been drifting off between them on the ride over, his head tucked into Qui-Gon's side as they flew through Coruscant. Obi-Wan had stared out at the tall buildings. Millions of tiny lights coming from millions of beings’ windows passed by so quickly they ran like circuitry through the blueing night. 

“ ‘m awake,” Anakin mutters, eyes still closed as the airtaxi whooshes off having deposited its fare.

“You’re not,” Qui-Gon says. “But I’m afraid you’ll have to walk just the same.”

“I am, though,” Anakin says, shaking his head so that his padawan braid whips back and forth, and the force of it knocks his eyes open. “Look? See? Awake.”

It isn’t even a conscious decision when Obi-Wan’s feet lead him to the right. He’s too tired to think about much of anything right now. It’s just that he’s back from a mission, it’s night time, and so his feet lead him to the right.

“Uh, Obi-Wan? The Temple is this way." Anakin points straight ahead as Obi-Wan abruptly stops. “You know it’s the big building over there, lots of spires. You can’t miss it.”

“Sorry, yes." Qui-Gon and Anakin are watching him. Waiting for him. Obi-Wan has made this journey from the drop-off point to the club so many times by himself it’s unnerving to have two witnesses for it now. Two very baffled witnesses.“I know. I was just—Sorry.”

“You're acting kinda weird, Obi-Wan," Anakin says, words sluggish with fatigue. "You didn’t hit your head while we were out there, did you?”

“No.” Obi-Wan says firmly, tamping down the pull from somewhere deep in his ribs that is urging him to turn right towards the club. “I’m just tired. That’s all. I'm coming.”

Obi-Wan slings his rucksack over his shoulder. He’s too tired to fight a wince when it jostles the long, barely-healed wound that starts at the nape of his neck and runs down to his waist. Every time he thinks it’s finally healing properly he reaches for something and it creases back open again.

“Still hurting?” Qui-Gon’s concern surrounds him like an aura. He touches Obi-Wan gently near his hip, a fluttering as brief as the landing of a big-eyed Swift moth and gone just as quickly. When the pirates had first taken the slice out of Obi-Wan, he had been the one to hold towels to Obi-Wan’s back until the bleeding was staunched, applying as much healing Force as he could muster when he was every bit as tapped out as Obi-Wan. 

“Nothing a little bacta can’t fix,” Obi-Wan says and Qui-Gon acknowledges it with a nod.

“Lucky for you, then,” this time the touch lands on Obi-Wan’s shoulder. “I have a supply in my room.”

“As do I.”

“Be that as it may,” Qui-Gon says, turning away to usher Anakin firmly toward the Temple steps. The boy tries to hide it but he’s trudging along with a slight limp. “You won’t be able to reach all of your wounds by yourself.”

“Ah, well, true enough,” Obi-Wan concedes with a small smile. “Your room, it is.”

It feels strange to walk through the Temple’s halls and pathways alongside Qui-Gon again after all this time. Even with Anakin between them, Qui-Gon still manages to find excuses to reach out to Obi-Wan: as they round a corner, as he’s guided over a step, before Qui-Gon enters the passcode that makes his locked room’s door skim open. 

Not much has changed in Qui-Gon’s room since the last time Obi-Wan was here, and it’s both comforting and a jarring reminder that Qui-Gon has been gone more often than he’s been back in the year since his knighting. Qui-Gon follows Anakin into his padawan’s room and tells Obi-Wan to make himself at home.

“You know where everything is,” Qui-Gon says with a smile and a phantom brush across Obi-Wan’s flank before leaving to attend to his half-asleep apprentice.

The medpac is where Obi-Wan remembers it to be and he takes the bacta out, arranging everything Qui-Gon will need to treat him on the round eating table. As he passes the open connecting door Obi-Wan can see Qui-Gon kneeling to help ease Anakin’s boots off his feet, careful not to jolt the boy’s knee which is still bandage-wrapped where he sits on the edge of Obi-Wan’s old bed.

"I can do it," Anakin protests through a yawn even as he’s flopping backwards to lay in bed. 

"Humor your master, young padawan," Qui-Gon is saying when Obi-Wan passes by. 

Obi-Wan drifts over to the window and pushes back the gauzy maroon curtain to look out at the view. Down below Obi-Wan can just make out the dots of Jedi as they climb the entrance stairs, coming back to the Temple for the night. Obi-Wan doesn’t have a window in his room so he’d forgotten how nice it could be to just watch the hiving of Temple business from a distance. He has many memories of Qui-Gon perched on this windowsill, drinking a caff after his morning meditation, watching the stream of lives down below as they started their day.

When Qui-Gon enters his room again he closes the partitioning door behind him.

“All well with Anakin?” Obi-Wan asks.

“He was asleep before his second boot was off,” Qui-Gon says, wandering to the table to look over the supplies Obi-Wan had laid out. 

“Ah, well that is promising. Means he isn’t so traumatized from his two encounters with the pirates,” Obi-Wan says, reaching to close the curtains behind him but stops when Qui-Gon tells him not to.

“It’s a nice reminder that I’m not still on a ship,” Qui-Gon says and Obi-Wan pushes the curtains open again.

Without waiting to be told Obi-Wan starts to shuffle off his cloak and tunic while Qui-Gon pulls a chair out for Obi-Wan to sit in. He waits as Qui-Gon assesses the wound on his back. He can hear the calming sounds of Qui-Gon’s breath as it pulses a gentle rhythm from somewhere behind Obi-Wan, and without much effort he is soon matching their inhales together. Obi-Wan holds himself still as he waits for the warm, familiar press of bacta. Instead he startles when two fingers touch a spot along his hairline behind his right ear. 

“You deserved better,” Qui-Gon says, voice soft with regret as he strokes where Obi-Wan’s padawan braid had been. “I’m sorry that I was so consumed by my conflict with the Council over Anakin’s training that I didn’t give your knighting the consideration you’d earned—that you'd more than earned—as my padawan. I have a habit—a failing, really—of taking your steady presence at my back for granted, Obi-Wan.” Qui-Gon begins to remove the bandage from its protective cover. “One day I turned around to find you missing and it was only then that I realized what I’d lost.”

“You didn’t lose me,” Obi-Wan says, matching the softness in Qui-Gon’s voice with his own. 

Guilt pulses through Obi-Wan, flushing his cheeks and he’s glad Qui-Gon can’t see it from where he’s busy dressing Obi-Wan’s wounds. If Qui-Gon had any notion of how spectacularly he’d strayed from his Jedi teachings—how flagrantly, how hedonistically—he might not be so insistent that Obi-Wan deserved better. “It was nice, though, to fight alongside you against the pirates. Like the old days.”

“No, not like the old days, Obi-Wan. It felt like something different—like newer days ahead. Didn’t you feel it too?”

Obi-Wan had felt it. He _can_ feel it. There is a quiet serenity in the Force around them, a contented humming that Obi-Wan hasn’t felt in so long. Of all the places in the entire galaxy the two of them might be at this very moment, they’d somehow managed to find each other, exactly where they should have been all along. In the quiet hush Obi-Wan starts to feel safe enough to thin his shields further only to find Qui-Gon’s are lowering, too.

Obi-Wan can feel Qui-Gon’s fondness. His approval. A meager trickle of worry as he works on the injury that runs in long parallel to Obi-Wan’s spine, and his relief at it finally being attended to. But there’s something else there—something new and precious and a little thrilling. 

Something that makes Obi-Wan want to reach out and dare.

“There.” Qui-Gon says with a final press of the adhesion to Obi-Wan’s lower back. “All done.”

When Obi-Wan stands Qui-Gon doesn’t step away. They are close—so close—and it isn’t far to go when Obi-Wan tilts his head up to find Qui-Gon’s mouth in a kiss. Before he can get there, though, Qui-Gon steps away, severing the moment clean in two.

“But—” Obi-Wan starts, at a loss. Qui-Gon is pulling his arms into his sleeves, an impenetrable fortress that Obi-Wan would have no chance of hoping to scale. The ebb and flow of the connection between them is abruptly paved over. “But you want me. I could feel it.”

"You're mistaken," and Obi-Wan knows— _knows_ —it’s a lie. Qui-Gon looks away, as if he hadn’t spent the last few days brushing gentle touches along Obi-Wan’s body. As if he hadn’t whispered quiet flirtations that only Obi-Wan could hear in the claustrophobic ship. As if Obi-Wan hadn’t turned time and time again to see Qui-Gon watching him with a private smile on his face.

"I'm not," Obi-Wan says. He knows what he'd felt through their cautious bond before Qui-Gon had hidden behind shielding so thick that if Obi-Wan were to close his eyes he would lose all sense of the man and would start to believe he was alone. He’d felt Qui-Gon’s yearning. Obi-Wan can still trace the shape of it in the air. 

"My desires are irrelevant," Qui-Gon says, stepping away and it’s instinct to chase after him. Obi-Wan has been denied entrance to Qui-Gon’s heart so many times in so many ways over the years that it's a habit to rattle his locked doors, to pound at his walls, and demand to be let in. 

"Not to me,” Obi-Wan says.

Qui-Gon wants him, and _Force_ does he want Qui-Gon. He can feel a longing that’s been building inside Obi-Wan for longer than he’d realized coalescing in his chest. It would be so simple for Qui-Gon to reach out, knowing Obi-Wan will be there for him. Instead Obi-Wan finds himself being denied by Qui-Gon Jinn yet again.

This is a kata they’ve performed to perfection. 

He should be angry but mostly Obi-Wan is just tired. He’s tired of always being the momentum in their relationship, of making the leap forward into faith while Qui-Gon pushes them three stumbling steps back.

“It seems like I’m always waiting for you,” Obi-Wan says, eyes trained on the wall as he folds his arms across his bare chest. “Waiting to become your padawan, waiting for you to wake up in the bacta tank, waiting for you to apologize. I waited for a year for you to see me as your equal and now this.” Obi-Wan shakes his head, at a loss.

He can’t do this. He can’t spend the next few days—weeks? months? a lifetime?—in stasis until Qui-Gon finally acknowledges what they both know is true. 

“I know my life is better when you’re in it, Qui-Gon, but I can’t tread water until you realize you need me in yours. I can’t wait for you to wake up. Not again.”

Obi-Wan doesn’t bother to slide his tunic on before he leaves. He dresses as he passes through the halls, walking away from Qui-Gon as quickly as he can. He should go to his own room to sleep off this simmering resignation and despair but the thought of that sterile, impersonal room is too much to bear. Instead Obi-Wan leaves the Temple entirely, heading to the only place in Coruscant that he can turn off his heart and lose himself in a sea of bodies and glitter for a little while.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ***
> 
> Story got away from me again, so there’s one more chapter after this one. Don’t worry, though, it’s mostly done and will be up soon
> 
> ***

“Foam night tonight,” Obi-Wan is warned at the door so he tiredly peels off his tunic for the second time that night while the cloak check girl clucks at the long bandage on his back.

“Everything okay, there, Ben?” she asks and it doesn’t escape Obi-Wan that even though she doesn’t know his real name—and he doesn't know hers at all—this might be the closest he has to a friend at the moment. 

“Yeah. Fine.”

“Because if someone is beating on you,” her voice drops as she looks around. “I know a guy.”

“I’m fine,” he says with a small smile, the offer of violence on his behalf oddly touching, and he can now see why Qui-Gon enjoys his collection of non-Jedi strays. Obi-Wan’s mood drops like barometric pressure heralding an approaching storm as his thoughts flicker to Qui-Gon. Now he’s no longer smiling. 

“The worst is over," Obi-Wan tells her and he isn't sure what he means. 

His injury, certainly, but this sucking wet wound where his heart had once been, too. Another part of Obi-Wan offered and rejected by Qui-Gon Jinn, and the last one he has to offer at that.

"Well, that's good. That can only mean the best is yet to come," she says with a smile as she palms open the door. She shouts over the music that has been released from its prison of soundproofing: "Enjoy yourself out there."

He tries. He really does.

Obi-Wan knows from experience he can make all his feelings go away if he just throws himself in deep enough, but he is hesitant. Something is keeping him from making the plunge and even though he knows he won't drown entirely—mostly because he hasn't yet—he realizes he's never been caught and carried this far before.

His drink isn’t doing it for him tonight so Obi-Wan leaves it behind on the bar only half finished.

Foam hovers waist-high, whipped up to even greater heights by the twisting, whirring crowd. It pulsates with a blue phosphorescence the likes of which Obi-Wan has only ever seen before in the deepest parts of the loneliest ocean worlds. Obi-Wan wades onto the dance floor as the synth dashes against his body but for once his heartbeat doesn't respond to keep tempo. 

He's too sluggish for that.

No, sound comes to him from too many light years away to make a difference. Like seeing a distant star he knows was obliterated long ago—all that is left is this tiny pinpoint. A faint cosmic memory.

He’s drifting along, alone, when hands pull him flush against a bare chest.

“Hey,” yells a voice in his ear and Obi-Wan looks up to see bright blue eyes and a messy top knot. A grin that promises a hard ride and a good time.

It's easy to fall into Epic. To hold on when there's nothing else around to seek purchase on. Epic wraps his arms around Obi-Wan's waist and his eyebrows draw together when he feels the bandage.

"It's fine," Obi-Wan yells through the pulse of music and Epic accepts him at his word with a nod. Still, he's being cautious about where he touches Obi-Wan, careful not to hurt him, and that isn't what Obi-Wan needs from this thing between them. He didn’t come here tonight to be treated with care. He came to burn.

Obi-Wan pulls Epic to him and falls into his mouth with vicious kisses laced with teeth. He gets the message then, meeting Obi-Wan roughness for roughness. He bends down to suck a mouth-shaped bruise onto Obi-Wan’s neck. He’s mad for it, desperate. Surrounded by beings Obi-Wan can only half-see, they are alone among the foam. Obi-Wan reaches between them to force a hand down Epic’s pants, grabbing him where he’s hard and hot. Epic makes a sound that Obi-Wan can feel more than hear as his own hand finds Obi-Wan to return the favor.

Obi-Wan is trying, he’s really trying, but he can’t find the rhythm. He can’t find the momentum. All he can think about is how he’d never noticed that Epic has Qui-Gon’s eyes. He remembers the other men with their beards and their noses and their hair. He realizes with uncomfortable clarity that he’s been making a composite of Qui-Gon all along, assembling him piece by piece in back rooms and bent over railings and braced against wind-chapped cement.

Obi-Wan takes his hand out of Epic’s pants and his shouted apology is met with a shrug. “No worries,” Epic shouts back, unbothered. “Maybe next time.”

That’s when he feels it. There’s a hole in the room. A place where the spluttering cables of electricity that connect everyone in this place go silent, a disruption in the unifying Force. He reaches for his hip, but of course he’d given his lightsaber up at the door. 

The mirrorball over head is spinning in lazy circles, casting a dreamy light across the glowing blue seafoam. He turns on his heel, searches over the crowd on the balls of his feet, heart picking up for the first time since he’d gotten here until it’s triple what the music is pulsing out. 

Shirtless and glittery, just off a handjob gone bad, and this is how Obi-Wan goes out.

Obi-Wan tries to see the Sith that is shielding from him in this room. He is searching for a dead man. A nightmare. Yellow eyes, black tattoos, a flash of a red ‘saber.

Instead he finds Qui-Gon. The last person he’d expect to see in a place like this, and the only one who is still wearing clothes.

Qui-Gon’s face is unreadable. His Force signature is unreadable. Whatever he’s doing here—however much he’d seen—is a mystery that is kept locked firmly behind a tightened mouth and blue eyes that strike Obi-Wan clean through the chest.

He says something but the music swells and the crowd screams with excitement. Obi-Wan tries to tell Qui-Gon that he can’t hear him, but he can see from the way Qui-Gon tilts his head that his words are lost, too.

Qui-Gon offers his hands to Obi-Wan, palms up, and shouts just loud enough for Obi-Wan to make it out.

“Trust me,” he says and Obi-Wan can’t be sure if it’s a question or a command. It wouldn’t matter either way. Qui-Gon had sought him out—is reaching for him now—and it’s so different from all their long established patterns that Obi-Wan can’t not meet him halfway.

Taking Qui-Gon’s hands he can sense a skittering along the edges of his shields, testing the perimeter of it, and he knows what is being asked of him.

With a deep, quelling breath Obi-Wan closes his eyes and lets go. 

This isn’t a thinning or a lowering or any half measure. This is everything, all at once, and he can feel the only thing that had been offering his heart a modicum of protection shatter like a falling sheet of glass. It breaks into a million hard, biting, lonely pieces.

All at once he can see Qui-Gon. All of him. Every hidden place and buried memory, every regret and triumph. He can see the people he’s rescued. The ones that he’s lost. Every mission gone wrong. The paralyzing self-loathing for all the ways he’s let each of his padawans down. 

Through it all Obi-Wan can see himself. Laughing and pensive and distant and relieved and smirking. He can see himself working a kata until it’s smoother than a thumb-worried river stone. He can see himself injured and losing blood until he’s gone pale. He can see himself walking away this very evening and the sinking, sick realization that had come to Qui-Gon then, this was really the end. 

He watches as Qui-Gon looks out his window, and wonders why he’s so broken that he has to make Obi-Wan suffer—crawl through mud—before giving them both what they want so badly. He can see the moment Qui-Gon notices the dot leaving the Temple from his window, and how, even with shields firmly in place he would know Obi-Wan by his walk from thirty parsecs away. He watches as Obi-Wan wraps himself around a stranger and the terrible certainty that it’s too late before Obi-Wan turns away and hope blossoms again.

Just as brightly, just as crowded and close, are flashes from Obi-Wan’s mind as they pass through to Qui-Gon. His triumphs, certainly, but louder still are all his failures. Qui-Gon can see all the men Obi-Wan sought out, all the punishing hangovers, all the times he's vomited by the Temple’s entrance when the two for one specials got the better of him. This is Obi-Wan laying himself bare. Every bad decision, every self-pitying morning, every moment he was a shame to the Jedi legacy, a shame to his masters, to his training— 

_Never,_ he can hear Qui-Gon whisper through his mind. _You could never shame the Jedi, Obi-Wan. You are the best of us._

Fingers take Obi-Wan by the wrists and reel him in. Obi-Wan catches himself the only way he can, by stretching himself lean and wrapping his arms around Qui-Gon's neck. He's tall, so much taller than Obi-Wan realized, and not a single one of those other men ever came close to matching his height.

Qui-Gon’s arms find his waist and when he presses against Obi-Wan’s wound, pain wraps like a phantom around both of them. It binds them together and they gasp as one. He tries to apologize but Obi-Wan won’t let him.

 _The pain is good,_ Obi-Wan whispers through Qui-Gon’s mind. It's a lesson he’s learned here in this club, amid the glittering bodies and the pulsing music and the dark recesses. _It’s proof we’re alive._

The crowd surges around them, a swirling, living, unified mass. They are lost to the glowing foam and the spinning lights. Overhead the confetti cannon erupts and he has to laugh when gold flickers down to get lost in Qui-Gon’s silver-flecked hair. This is a place where Obi-Wan has spiraled out of control too many times to count, but with his arms around Qui-Gon—somehow in all this churning chaos—Obi-Wan has been found. 

_May I?_

Obi-Wan isn’t sure what he’s asking for but the answer is yes. Yes, to it all. _Have me here on the dance floor, in the back room, in the alley, on the Temple steps, in the Council chamber. Before the Senate, for all I care._

He can feel Qui-Gon chuckle through their connection, a rumble that starts somewhere deep and ends in a prickle along Obi-Wan’s skin.

 _We can work up to that. I thought I'd start with this first._ Qui-Gon bends down to find his mouth in a kiss. 

It’s free fall. 

He pulls Qui-Gon in tighter, meeting his tongue with an opening mouth and an eager hum. The places where they'd laid themselves bare fuse over, forging new connections, and Obi-Wan can feel Qui-Gon down to the molecular level. It isn't enough. Obi-Wan still wants more.

“Let’s get out of here,” Obi-Wan shouts in his ear when he can finally bring himself to pull away.

It’s the only time in all of the years that they’ve known each other that Qui-Gon does as Obi-Wan suggests at the first ask, but Obi-Wan knows it won't be the last.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ***  
> Here we are! Final chapter!  
> Note the bump up in rating. This is now explicit, hopefully that’s okay with you all.
> 
> ***

_Garen forgive me,_ Obi-Wan thinks the next morning when he wakes to find Qui-Gon in his bed beside him. _I’ve broken the first rule of clubbing._

Obi-Wan can feel laughter floating from Qui-Gon through their new bond. No, not through their bond, or at least not _just_ there. Qui-Gon is in his thoughts, he’s in the air in his lungs, he’s in the hollows of his body. Qui-Gon can read his memories as easily as his own and Obi-Wan knows this because he can see Qui-Gon’s, too.

 _If you’re having regrets, there might be an addendum to that clubbing rule—a catch and release policy, perhaps._ Qui-Gon thinks directly into Obi-Wan’s mind as his long body stretches out even longer and his ankles are now hanging off Obi-Wan’s Temple-appointed, standard mattress. _You’d need to read the fine print to be sure._

_Said like someone who has mediated far too many planetary negotiations and now thinks that ‘addendum’ and ‘fine print’ are appropriate morning-after talk._

_Enlighten me, Knight Kenobi,_ Qui-Gon thinks and it’s a low rumble that spills like honey into Obi-Wan’s belly. _What would be appropriate morning-after talk?_

_Right now? The word ‘caff’ comes to mind. And the word ‘shower,' since the Council will be expecting our reports this morning._

Qui-Gon is laughing and it’s like being tucked up and rolled away by a ten foot tidal wave.

 _That’s all very pragmatic. Surprising for someone that was covered in an inordinate amount of glitter last I checked._

Obi-Wan sits up as he reaches for the lighting panel. His windowless room makes it impossible to see much more than a shadowed shape beside him and a faint glow from the clothes they’d shed last night near the door. The lights come up and it takes Obi-Wan a few blinks for his eyes to adjust. 

When they do he finds Qui-Gon propped up on an elbow watching him. He’s being scrutinized. Unabashedly so. Obi-Wan feels the sting of a blush on his ears. “Hello, there,” he says softly.

Qui-Gon smiles. “Hello yourself.” His voice, spoken out loud, is rough from little sleep and it makes Obi-Wan’s skin break out in shivering goosebumps to hear it. If he’d thought it was all-consuming to feel Qui-Gon in his head he hadn’t counted on what their bond would make of the material realm, too. 

Sensing the raw nerve that is Obi-Wan’s flayed open mind and body, Qui-Gon deliberately turns away to examine his surroundings. Obi-Wan can see his room through Qui-Gon’s eyes, filtered through his thoughts. Cold. Impersonal. An asceticism so punishing that it’s no wonder Obi-Wan fled it to the club night after night.

Obi-Wan can sense no censure in the thought, no disgust at where Obi-Wan has been going and what he’s been doing. It is a relief and better than he deserves, Obi-Wan thinks as his shame swells. Qui-Gon sits up to run a soothing hand across Obi-Wan’s naked thigh. _You have nothing to be ashamed of._ His presence in Obi-Wan’s mind is firm, a pillar to cling to.

“We need to get you something for your room, Obi-Wan. A houseplant or something.”

Obi-Wan clears his throat to match Qui-Gon’s easy tone in the physical realm. “I don’t have any windows,” he points out even though it’s patently obvious from where they sit in this white and chrome sarcophagus.

“There’s tech for that.”

“You know I'll only kill it.”

“Don't worry. I’ll keep it alive for you.” Qui-Gon stretches again and Obi-Wan can see flecks of glitter along his body where they’d migrated from Obi-Wan’s. “It’ll give me something to do when I’m left behind at the Temple with Anakin while Knight Kenobi is off galavanting among the stars,” Qui-Gon says with good humor.

It makes Obi-Wan’s chest pang to realize that they are now switching their roles from this past year. Everything is different and yet they’re still starships passing in deep space. 

“It won’t change anything for us. We don't have to be a matched set running through the galaxy together.” Qui-Gon promises, before his voice turns sly. “Though with that hair and your beard coming in, I’m starting to wonder if that’s where this is headed.”

Obi-Wan laughs. “No. I have no interest in being your reflection.” 

“That’s good to hear.” Qui-Gon peers behind Obi-Wan’s back, a frown on his face. “I don’t want to alarm you but your bandage is glowing.”

“It’s from the foam. It'll stain anything that isn’t biologically attached." Obi-Wan had learned all that the slow way once before. "It’s harmless, though.”

“Delightful,” Qui-Gon says, eyeing the bandage as if it might be radioactive. “I’m going to change it just to be safe.”

“The bacta’s in the ‘fresher,” Obi-Wan tells him as he rolls over onto his stomach, propping his chin on his folded-over arms. 

A hand trails across the curve of his ass and Obi-Wan laughs. “I thought you were going to change my bacta.”

“Forgive me, Obi-Wan. Merely a detour, it won't happen again.” Qui-Gon is true to his word as he then replaces the bandage, silent with intent.

Obi-Wan drifts a bit as he thinks of what beautiful hands Qui-Gon has. Broad palms, long fingers, and more gentle than they have any right to be while being so capable and strong.

Qui-Gon finishes and Obi-Wan rolls over with a smile that dies away at the serious expression on Qui-Gon’s face. Whatever Qui-Gon is worried about, their connection didn’t prepare Obi-Wan for it and he scrambles to sit up. Qui-Gon’s shields are back up, the distance between them palpable.

“I want to be sure before we take things any further that this—” he waves a hand between them. “—isn’t something you feel you have to do. That you feel obliged to do.”

“Little late for that sentiment, considering I had your tongue in my ass last night,” Obi-Wan says with a laugh though Qui-Gon is resolute where he stands, towering naked over Obi-Wan.

“You used to idolize me once—” 

“My childish hero worship isn’t a factor here, I can assure you.” Obi-Wan balances on the mattress as he rises to his knees. “But if it brings you comfort to hear it, then, I promise you. I see you as you are. Not my master. Not a hero to be worshipped. Just a man. A flawed man.”

The air is thick with the dragging gravity of the moment and Obi-Wan wants to respect Qui-Gon’s concerns—he does—but he can't help cheerfully adding with a bright grin: “A very, very, very, _very_ flawed man.”

Blue eyes as icy as glacial runoff freeze him with a glare. It doesn't detract from the fondness that lines Qui-Gon’s face and if he needs any more proof of Qui-Gon's affection Obi-Wan can feel it run like a sweeping current through their bond as Qui-Gon opens it again.

“Come here,” Obi-Wan says, dragging Qui-Gon to stand by the bed’s edge with insistent hands. “I see you for who you are. I know you, Qui-Gon Jinn, and even knowing what I know I still, somehow, love you anyway.”

From where he kneels the circular, shining scar where a Sith had plunged a lightsaber into Qui-Gon’s chest sits at eye level and Obi-Wan reaches out to press his palm to it. “I nearly lost you once. And then I lost you again when we ignored each other for a year. If something were to happen to either one of us— if one of us should...” he lets his voice trail off because it’s too terrible to speak out loud. “I want to have as much time by your side as the Force allows.”

Obi-Wan leans in and replaces his palm with his lips, kissing that cursed reminder of Qui-Gon’s mortality. A large hand comes up to cradle his head and, emboldened, he kisses down Qui-Gon’s torso. It’s so different, doing this here, in a place so bracingly mundane. Here Obi-Wan doesn’t thrill at his own daring, his room is too private for that. This isn’t even like the frantic, frenetic sex they’d had last night when they’d been so desperate for one another’s touch they hadn’t made it further inside than the wall beside his front door.

No, this is patience and self-assurance and more affection than Obi-Wan can hold in his body alone so he sends it through their connection to fill Qui-Gon up, too. Obi-Wan urges Qui-Gon to lay back on the bed and wraps his arms around Qui-Gon’s thighs. He can see Qui-Gon’s cock, rising and ready for him. Obi-Wan ignores it and instead he takes his time, kissing teasing pathways around his thighs and belly until Qui-Gon is panting with need. He wants to draw this out and then, maybe, the moment won't ever have to end.

When Obi-Wan lays his beard-roughened cheek against the sensitive skin at the crease of Qui-Gon’s inner thigh and Qui-Gon gasps, spine curving in a bow. “I suppose a beard on you has its uses.”

 _Might have to keep it if it can drive you to madness,_ Obi-Wan whispers through Qui-Gon’s mind.

_You can accomplish that with your wits alone, I assure you._

Obi-Wan narrows his eyes and reaches up to swat at Qui-Gon’s chest. He draws away, ignoring Qui-Gon’s protestions, and grabs a tube of slick, instead. 

“Here, make yourself useful.” Obi-Wan squeezes a good amount onto Qui-Gon’s fingers and then he guides them into his ass.

Qui-Gon plunges his fingers in, eagerly playing with Obi-Wan, and it’s tempting to get distracted but Obi-Wan has bigger plans. 

He turns, angling their bodies so that Qui-Gon can continue on while Obi-Wan takes Qui-Gon’s cock into his mouth.

Hubris isn’t something that they are supposed to indulge in as Jedi, but Obi-Wan has been pulled into enough back rooms to know he is good at this. He is _very_ good at this and it isn’t very long before Qui-Gon is panting out a warning.

“I’m close.”

Obi-Wan draws back and Qui-Gon urges him up so that they can kiss. His long, clever, beautiful fingers find Obi-Wan’s ass again twisting until Obi-Wan is talking nonsense against the skin of his throat.

"Enjoying yourself?" Qui-Gon teases Obi-Wan with his words now, too, and it's annoying that he can remain so detached while Obi-Wan is coming apart. Obi-Wan narrows his eyes as he pushes away to straddle Qui-Gon's hips.

He takes Qui-Gon in, inch by tight inch. By the time he's done Qui-Gon is grabbing his thighs with enough force that there's a slap of skin-meeting-skin before he's holding on, nails cutting half moons into the skin of his thighs. Obi-Wan doesn't mind it. He laughs, riding Qui-Gon until he's the one muttering nonsensically, and Obi-Wan is happy to fuck himself on Qui-Gon until the last roiling pleasure leaves his body but soon he finds himself flipped over onto his back. His legs are thrown over Qui-Gon’s shoulders and then he’s folded tight so that Qui-Gon can kiss him—long, deep, hungry kisses with their mouths locked together and quick, feathery, grateful ones peppered across the bridge of his nose and his cheekbones—as Qui-Gon’s hips set a punishing rhythm. 

“Come on,” Obi-Wan urges when he can feel through their bond how near Qui-Gon is to spilling over. It doesn't take long and one day they'll manage 'languid' and 'slow'. For now everything is 'fast' and 'now'. “Come on, come on, come on. I need you to.”

With a lightsaber-calloused palm Qui-Gon takes Obi-Wan in hand and strokes him until he finishes with a cry. Qui-Gon follows, plunging in so deeply that Obi-Wan can feel him in his past, in his present, and into a long future that stretches out before them like a promise.

“What were those words that you wanted to hear, Obi-Wan?” Qui-Gon asks at last with a sigh. “ ‘Caff?’ And ‘shower?’”

“Yeah,” Obi-Wan says.

His heart is still racing and he hasn’t quite come back down enough to care about anything so he lets Qui-Gon make plans for the both of them.

“Well let me make the first and then later we can share the second. We’ll have to go report to the Council soon.”

“Yeah.”

Qui-Gon kisses him—a casual, sloppy kiss—a simple show of affection that splits like an atom, reacting and crackling with fission until it takes everything in Qui-Gon to pull away.

“Oh,” Qui-Gon says breathlessly, grinning at Obi-Wan. He can see that Qui-Gon’s body is already responding again. Obi-Wan’s is, too. “Oh this is going to be trouble,” Qui-Gon chuckles as he deliberately rolls away. “Caff. That’s what I’m going to do. Make some caff.”

“I like caff,” Obi-Wan offers, voice dazed and low, and he can see a shiver as it works down Qui-Gon’s spine.

He turns and raises a finger at Obi-Wan in warning. “Don’t start,” Qui-Gon cautions and then mutters to himself. “Maybe a quick, cold shower. _Then_ caff.”

Obi-Wan hears the water kick on. He knows he should be as responsible as Qui-Gon and try to temper these wisps of desire but he can’t seem to control his hand as it drifts down to his half-hard cock. He touches himself idly as he wonders if Qui-Gon can sense what he’s doing.

 _Yes I can, so stop it,_ Qui-Gon answers sternly. _Or else we may never make it out of this room today._

Sighing, Obi-Wan takes his hand away. He reluctantly raises enough of a shield that he isn’t privy to every stray thought that flits through Qui-Gon’s mind. Building a partition between them isn’t lonely—not this time—because even as Qui-Gon slips further away from him Obi-Wan can still feel his all-encompassing affection and desire and love as it shines through, bright as a supernova.

The shower cuts out and Qui-Gon putters about, drying off and doing something that requires a lot of banging around while the sink spits water.

“Obi-Wan?” Qui-Gon calls out from the ‘fresher at last, unease rounding out his words. “Is there a way to get my cloak to stop glowing?”

###

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two inspirations for this fic:
> 
> “I want you to know, I'm a mirrorball  
> I can change everything about me to fit in  
> You are not like the regulars, The masquerade revelers  
> Drunk as they watch my shattered edges glisten” —Taylor Swift, Folklore
> 
> and 
> 
> “When life gives you lemons, you sell some of your grandma's jewelry and you go clubbin'.” —Jean-Ralphio, Parks and Rec
> 
> What can I say? I contain multitudes. 
> 
> This is my first ever foray into writing Star Wars after a VERY long hiatus from writing fic (and after nuking my last account, but a fresh start is always fun, right?) Thank you to everyone that read this story which somehow spiraled out of control when I’d only meant to write 3,000 words of Obi-Wan covered in glitter and dancing in a club. Here’s hoping I stuck the landing by the end. A special thanks to all those who encouraged me chapter by chapter, I never would have had the stamina to write all this in about a week if it weren’t for you. But in the words of Leslie Knope: “There’s nothing we can’t do if we work hard, never sleep, and shirk all other responsibilities in our lives.”
> 
> Please don’t hesitate to find me on Tumblr (darkisrising). I’m new there so feel free to tell me how I’m Tumbling wrong.
> 
> Since I didn’t wind up using this, here’s a fragment for the road. It takes place between the final two chapters.
> 
> ***
> 
> Obi-Wan is pinned to his front door while he tries and fails four times to enter the passcode to his room. Teeth graze the pulsepoint at the base of his neck as Qui-Gon drapes his long body over Obi-Wan. He’d gotten handsier the further they’d walked from the club and now, so close to Obi-Wan’s bed, he was driving Obi-Wan to distraction.
> 
> The lock blinks red. Denied.
> 
> Again.
> 
> “Fuck,” Obi-Wan breathes at the door, resting his forehead on the cold steel in defeat. When Qui-Gon bites down he rears back, breaking out in a shiver as he gasps: “Fuck.”
> 
> Qui-Gon’s amusement is a rolling, reverberating presence through their newly flayed-open connection. _Is there a problem?_ he asks in Obi-Wan’s head. _Some reason why you can’t concentrate?_
> 
> “As if you don’t know,” Obi-Wan grouses out loud. The halls are abandoned at this hour, the lights lowered to a soft spill that only makes their clothes—still glowing from where the phosphorescent foam had claimed them—that much more visible. It makes Obi-Wan nervous that they'll be seen but it has only emboldened Qui-Gon. His hands find Obi-Wan’s hips and pull him back until they are pressed flush together. They are alone, but there’s always the chance a knight will stumble in from a late night docking. Qui-Gon doesn’t seem as worried about it as Obi-Wan is.
> 
>  _What’s there to worry about? I’m a Jedi master, fully in control of my faculties. I'd sense them coming before they stepped foot in the hall._ The light blinks red again. _Careful. One more try and you’ll be locked out._
> 
> Frustration is tight in his throat as Obi-Wan hisses out: “Don’t you think I know that?” 
> 
> _There’s always my room._
> 
> A fragment splits through Obi-Wan’s mind: sitting on his padawan bed trying to study, scowling at their connecting door as Qui-Gon’s off kilter singing seeps through and fills his room. The bond between them shimmers with laughter again and he knows Qui-Gon has seen the memory, too.
> 
> “Not a chance.” As long as there is a padawan in that room next door they will _never_ go back to Qui-Gon’s for sex. Obi-Wan takes a deep breath and faces the lock panel once again. He knows he needs to get strategic because there is every chance that if he gets this wrong he’ll be going down on Qui-Gon in the hallway, Jedi modesty be damned. Desire hits, crisp and bright from behind him as Qui-Gon clings close, tighter than a shadow. “Like that idea, do you?”
> 
>  _I like this one better_ A new fragment. A fantasy, not a memory—not yet, at least—Obi-Wan face down on the bed, a pillow under his hips, as Qui-Gon splays his ass open with his broad hands and tongues him until he’s all but weeping.
> 
> “Yes. Let’s do that. I vote for that.” He taps desperately at the panel.
> 
>  _Then get that damned door unlocked_ Qui-Gon growls, his earlier amusement has evaporated—seared away—under the molton heat of his want.
> 
> “What do you think I’ve been trying to—” the door opens with a gentle swish and they both topple in.


End file.
